A treatise on the sympathetic relation between the stomach and the brain ... in the causation and cure of diseases. With an appendix ... on certain points connected with the treatment of chronic disease and it's [sic] attendant debility / by Charles Wightman.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the sympathetic relation between the stomach and the brain ... in the causation and cure of diseases. With an appendix ... on certain points connected with the treatment of chronic disease and it's [sic] attendant debility / by Charles Wightman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    29/210 (page 13)
    But, if a due supply of the food indispensable for repairing the daily exhaustion of the powers be not received into the stomach, certain changes take place in the system, evidently arising from the want of that nervous energy, which the differ- ent organs require to be expended upon them, for the proper performance of their functions. Nor is the explanation difficult. That degree of excitement in the brain necessary for supporting a healthy state of the system is restrained. Hence follow languor, lassitude, depression of spirits, in- terrupted sleep, and unfitness for performing the many voluntary motions which are requisite— “ frigent effoetae in corpore vires.” In the first instance, and especially, the stomach suffers. From the want of a due supply of nervous energy, this organ is enfeebled to an extreme degree; and if the same cause continue to operate for any length of time, the body emaciates and gradually succumbs in debility; the motion of the heart and arteries becomes weaker ; every function of the system is improperly performed ; and a general cachectic state prevails ; in consequence of which the body is rendered obnoxious to many diseases, of which some may be rapidly fatal, and others will consume the sufferer by slow decay. In certain instances, from the protracted want of food, dan- gerous and alarming symptoms, such as tender- c